This one deserves the honor of the label “film” as the word might be defined by film snobs, as opposed to “movie,” and not just because it’s not the usual Hollywood product. Bourne There’s plenty of German trash out there, we’re sure. (We just watched something called Stalingrad– “by the producers of Das Boot.
What a mess.)
The Lives of Others, though, ranks right up there as one of the top two in the surveillance genre with The Conversation
. There’s not a single wasted frame. The tension is palpable and the plot subtle, both drawing you in to the multiple dilemmas of the multiple characters. The mood is perfectly set with a simple sound track and the spare austere settings befit the desolate time and place, the East German police state just before the fall of the Berlin Wall. The imminent changes about to befall all in the film may be the overriding dramatic irony at work, but it is just one of many, an event that none of the characters would never venture to predict from their viewpoint; and the filmmakers do well to resist any kind of easy hindsight along these lines. Subtlety is the by-word and they abound, even down to the background sounds of the final scenes.
We wouldn’t want to spoil it for you though, just get it, rent it, NetFlix it. Watch it with someone you love who doesn’t undervalue freedom. You won’t be sorry.
Final note: And it was nice, for once, to see the “Bohemian” types in opposition to an actual oppresive regime.
